Zeno’s Paradox as a Way of Explanating the Contradictions of Inter-Ethnic Interaction: the Example of Galicia

Abstract

In view of the search for an adequate methodology of modern humanitarian studies, in particular retrospective political science, the article considers the possibility of using the aporias of Zeno of Eleusis. Using them as a certain model – based on systematization as irregular and self-similar structures – can be fully justified for the effective description of unique images, concepts and events in the West Ukrainian chronotope. The specifics of Ukrainian-Polish cooperation in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. (“New Era” 1890–1894, “Galician Compromise” 1914); of Ukrainian-Jewish cooperation in 1873, 1907 and 1911; of the Ukrainian-German cooperation of 1848–1849 and 1918–1923, it is proposed to consider it as a kind of fractal within the paradoxes – Zeno’s aporia. It is proposed to consider the institutionalization of the figures of interethnic interaction in Galicia within the limits of Zeno’s Paradox – from the number of ethnic political actors with multiple identities (double and sometimes triple), “people of Paradox” (Andrei Sheptytskyi, Yakiv Orenstein, Hans Koch). The thesis that the aporia “Achilles and the Tortoise” (paradox of Ukrainian-Polish relations) proves the following specificity: they start at the same time, but the point from which the Tortoise (Ukrainians) begins to move is slightly ahead of the starting point of Achilles (Poles). The hypothesis is proposed that Zeno's other aporia – “Dichotomy” – complements the aporia about Achilles and the tortoise: it refers to the period when two competing ethnonations in Galicia (Ukrainian and Polish), which were deprived of political subjectivity, could not reach the desired compromise (equality) within the territory of joint residence. The dialectic of Ukrainian-Jewish cooperation in general shows that it has signs of Zeno’s aporia “The Arrow”: movement (qualitative changes in inter-ethnic interaction) between the main participants (in particular, Ukrainians and Poles) is impossible in the presence of an “outsider” (Poles), and therefore with his representation in the form of the sum of indivisible seats (deputy mandates). It is shown that the Ukrainian-German cooperation in 1848–1849, 1918–1923 and its course correspond only in general terms to Zeno’s aporia “Stadium”. Its example is the classic chariot race: both Ukrainians and Germans (sometimes Austrians) can be different. Since the Germans (Austrians, Germans) (in the investigated chronotope) are a state nation, and Ukrainians are a stateless nation, their ultimate goals differed – they were at opposite ends of the nation-building race.